Conference Weekend 10/2/2017

Well hello! 

It seems like I write the same boring stuff every week haha so I hope you enjoy it!    This week was a busy week due to leadership council in Resistencia and general conference. The leadership conference was super nice and fun. President Patania is super energetic. He kind of focused on us as leaders and talked about how we are the ones that set the tone for the mission. And basically trained us to be better leaders and to ¨Create a good environment¨ so that the missionary work can grow. With Transfers, we got a new Sister training leader in our zone, sister Espinosa from mexico city. So it was Elder Souza and I and the sister training leaders traveling to and from the council. It is a 3 hour bus ride to get to resi from here. Also on wednesday while we were traveling, an Elder returned home to Reconquista, Elder Bustos who served 2 years in the Argentina Mendoza mission. On Friday we had a homecoming party for him in the church with the whole ward. It was super fun and nice. All the YSA people came and his mom was super happy. He will now be our Ward mission leader here. And he has a couple siblings who are not baptized. So maybe he can help us with that.

Speaking of YSA DRAMA this week. Well it is official, Lucas and Carla are dating... and the YSA of Reconquista does not like it! which I dont know why. But according to what they are saying, No one was too fond of Carla because she often went to ¨Boliches¨ or clubs where there is alcohol, loud music, and... not the spirit. But they mainly dont like it because the are ¨exclusive¨. When they get together as YSA lucas and Carla are pared off in the kitchen cooking or something like that and they want them to be more inclusive... but yeah.... I am just an uninformed missionary who knows very little details concerning the matter. So lets move onto Conference!! 

I loved conference!! Elder Giforos and I got to watch it in english... and poor Sister Howe(who has 6 weeks in Arg) had to watch all of it in Spanish because she couldnt be in the ¨Gringo¨ room by herself with us. Elder Giforos and I offered to let her watch... but that would mean that her comp would have to be with her. So when we asked her 37 year old brazilian comp she said, ¨no, I dont know english¨. 

But I think my favorite talked were Elder Nelsons(Read the BoM), Elder Uctdorfs(darkness & Light), Elder Hollands(Be therefore Perfect, and then Elder Andersen’s(recap of Gen Con.).

Here are my favorite Quotes: 

¨I promise you that as you read the BoM everyday, it will serve as a protection against Pornography and other mind-numbing addictions¨ -Nelson

¨Our only hope for perfection is to receive it as a gift, not by earning it¨ -Holland 

¨Because you are not of this world, the world hateth you¨ -Oaks 

I love you all. I am glad the Utah State beat Byu... I cant believe that BYU is having such a horrible year. Crazy for me! I hope you all have a great week! 

E´ Corbin Keicher

Elder souza, sisters fernadez and Espinoza, and I waiting in the bus terminal    

   Me with Elder Masello at leadership council

Foto with ex-elder Bustos at his Homecoming party  

Me with elder Bustos

Me with the CAKE   

- Selfie with the YSA at the homecoming of Elder Bustos(carla is not there)     

Visiting Sister Margarita, she is a less active who has a lot of health problems. 

   

We bought food from this guy, willie, inbetween the 2nd session and priesthood    

Us with Cesar, he watched 2 sessions in english becasue he is fluent! 

Use with Cesar, he watched 2 sessions in english becasue he is fluent! 

All the members drinking mate inbetween sessions    

us gringos watching conference!! WOHO!     

Us with the Ponze family!! 




 

Lucas has a girlfriend 9/26/17

Hey  All! 

Well we had transfers and nothing changed with me, same area and still with Elder Souza. I am pleased because I didnt want souza to go just after one transfer. We get along and you just never know what kind of comp you might get when transfers come. So I am happy. We had 3 missionaries leave and 3 come. One of them is Elder Carro(from ARG) who now is in Vera... it will be interesting because I was already his ZL once and he has...... a reputation of causing problems. so we´ll see what happens this transfer...stay tuned! haha 

But this week was pretty normal. It is kinda fun having a young single adult convert(Lucas Vergarra 23yrold). JAS(jovenes adultos solteros) or the YSA group here in Reconquista consists of like 9-10 people and now Lucas has been thrown into this group. This past weekend the YSA group here traveled to Paraná, entre rios to go to a YSA dance. That is where Lucas is from, and the older brother of Lucas makes what is called equipos de Mate(look it up), which is all the equipment that people here use to drink mate. Well, his older brother sells them really cheap so I bought one from him. But when we went to his house to give him the money before the trip, we found him with a jovencita from the YSA group named Carla.... Oh the worry that Elder Souza and I had for Lucas because he is a member of 4 weeks and now he thinks he can just go off and date the mormon YAS girls. I ll be honest, Lucas is a catch; works for the military as a meteorologist, has a car, isnt ugly, is mormon... but he is biting off more than he can chew. I feel like an overprotective parent, worrying about their kid after he/she turns 16. But it was awesome because Sunday, Lucas taught Gospel Principles... and what did he teach on? his topic was ¨Marriage and the eternal family¨. haha it was perfect but I hope it doesnt get him too motivated to get married... We will try to see if he wants to serve a mission because apparently Carla is working on her mission papers..... So much DRAMA!!

Lucas "the catch" Vergarra

We passed by the familia Moreira twice this week, the first time they didnt answer the door and the second time the mom answered the door and very frankly told us

  ¨ahora no puedo atenderles, estoy muy ocupada, otro momento, CHAU¨ ** abruptly closes the door **. Which is spanish for ¨my husband heard I was talking with you and told me not to listen to you guys.¨ 

I am so disappointed because they we rock solid the first two lessons we had. And the mom was SUPER nice and intrigued with the book of mormon and the restoration.... Unfortunatly  this happens too often in missionary work, but we can only keep going. On Wednesday, we had a zone service activity where we cleaned the ¨Zanjas¨(Ditches that serve as waste and trash storage) in a neighborhood in reconquista. It was gross but super fun! 

Zone service activity

That was basically the highlights of the week. I am super excited for general conference this weekend. Should be a fun week. I will be able to pic up my camera this week at leadership council in resistencia So I will be able to take more photos and videos. I hope you all have a great week! 

E´Corbin Keicher

Floating Island 9/18/17

how is it going?

This week was a lot of fun! But a little slow on the missionary work side of things. We had our multi-zone conference like I mentioned last week on Thursday. We left thursday morning at 6am in a shuttle with the whole zone and got to resistencia at 930am. The conference was super good and fun. President patania is a lot more number based than pres. Franco. There is definitely a difference in the mentality and way of going at things between the two. Pres. Patania talked about breaking trends and trying new things to see what works. But in our respective area of Reconquista 1, we are lacking a little and the work is a little stagnant. I am hoping that we can get some productive days in to jumpstart things again. We passed by the moreira family again this past week and taught lesson 1: the restoration. And it was super good, in the sense that the mom was super attentive and paying attention. She understood everything pretty well and understood the invitation to read, ponder and pray. So we will be verifying with her to see how she is feeling along with the rest of the family. But they are the most progressing right now in our pool. We were finally able to find Yolanda and her family. They are the young family that lost their 18 month year old due to heart complications. It has been hard to find them because after the funeral, yolanda lost it and they had to go live with some relatives that live in chaco. But this past week they came back so that their 2 boys(brain6 &alan8) wouldnt fail out of their year of school. But we talked to yolanda on friday, and it was so sad to see how much pain she is in.  She is on medications now to control her emotions and depression, but we just shared with her the Plan of Salvation and gave her some things to read from Joseph Smith regarding the death of little kids. Then on Saturday we went to their little humble house and helped her husband pour concrete floor for and extension they are putting in to their house. That was pretty fun to mix the concrete and level everything. Then on Sunday they came to sacrament meeting as a family. It was so nice to see them there. 

In the multizona, Pres. Patania talked about the use of computers and clarified the rule that, if the branch president calls him to give him permission, then the missionaries in that branch may use the computers. So we got our branch president to give us permission to use the computers. So luckly, we are no longer writing in cyber cafes. On our way back, we passed by walmart, and there I bought, microwave popcorn, doritos, tostidos chips, skittles, and some other stuff. But they didnt have salsa so that was a disappointment. Today, for lunch we went to the más lujo restaurant called ¨el cruce¨. They had waiters and everything. I ordered costeleta de cerdo which was basically a slab of prok chop(155pesos) that was super good. and I got it with a side of fries(55pesos) and a 350ml coke(35pesos). It was a little expensive but then part that made me mad was I ordered a desert that sounded so good. It was called isla flotante(55pesos), which literally is floating island. The waiter said it was really good. So I got that and then they brought it out, took a bite, and it was glazed with a coffee/alcohol cream. I was so mad, alcohol? in a desert? come on! That was my experience today. 

But that is it from Argentina this week. I hope you all have a great week!! Love you!! 

E´ Corbin Keicher

ps- still dont have a workable camera so I dont have many pics

These twins from our branch had their birthday

We had a choir last night  in a members house, we sang Más Cerca Dios de ti. 

Avocado Shake 9/10/17

Hey Fam!

Well time flew by this week. But it was a productive one. This is the
start of week 5 of the 6 week transfer and it is going to be an
exciting one. Tonight we have a FHE with a family that is reactivating
in the church. Tuesday and wednesday will be normal days and then
Thursdasy we have a multizone conference in Resistencia. Well be
taking a shuttle as a zone to resistencia earlyin the morning and then
after the conference we will stop by the only Wal Mart in the mission
to do some shopping.

Our District pic

But this last week we contacted in a young family of 5, the Moreira
family. 4 of them were home when we contacted them in the last
morning. The young mom and her 3 kids of 13, 9, and 5 years of age let
us in and we shared a quick message with them and left them with the
book of mormon and a time to come back this tuesday. Friday, we had a
post-baptism lesson with Lucas(23yr old) and we made a video eatting
argentine sweets. I`ll try and load thatup. but while we were there,
my brazilian companion made a Avocado shake.......... it consisted of
avocado, sugar, and milk.... it was awful. I dont know if logan had to
suffer through 2 years of avocado shakes cause i couldnt even finish
the glass i was served. Lucas was undecided about it... but lucas and
I agreed that the shake smelled like cold wet socks. It hasnt really
heated up yet, it rains a couple of times a week, but i know the
coming summer is inevitable. All the people here keep talking about
the huricans that hit texas and the earthquake in Mexico.... sounds
like it was pretty destructive.

Sunday was really cool. President Patania was in reconquista getting
to know the local district leaders and doing temple recommend
interviews for the members and so he was in our branch. His wife a 14
year old son, daniel, were with him. But I really enjoyed the talk
that Pte Patania gave. He talked about ¨coming unto christ¨. A line he
said really struck a chord with me, he said, ¨Too many latter-day
saints are active members IN church, but completely inactive members
OF the church¨. He basically made the point that many saints dont
remain active after the church doors close behind them. They go back
to their houses and during the week, they dont utter a single prayer,
read a single verse of scripture, or think about their savior only
until the enter church again the following sunday. I really loved
that. As members we need to be active members of the church, not just
in church buildings and church sponsered events, but rather in our
homes, during the week, and even when we are on vacations.
But I loveyou all. That is it from me this week in Argentina. I hope
you all have a great week.

Loves,

E´ Corbin Keicher

I forgot to mention that we went to the las colonias alfajor factor and took a tour. SUPER cool. 

on the tour

eating sweets with Lucas

knock off version of "UNO" called "screw-you"